Your Team of Advisors
We are your medical school application coaches, mentors, & cheerleaders
Rachel Rizal, MD
One phrase to Describe why I love Advising Students: Enabling students to reach their full potential
Hometown: Cerritos, California
Undergraduate: Princeton University, Cum Laude,
Major: Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs
Medical School: Stanford School of Medicine
Residency: Harvard, Emergency Medicine
What I Did After College:
- With the World Health Organization in the Philippines, I created new partnerships between city governments and public/private health clinics to improve Hepatitis B vaccination rates among newborns
- Launched a national HIV Awareness Campaign in the Philippines
- Produced an HIV awareness commercial for MTV
- Worked full-time at a healthcare consulting firm, advising pharmaceutical companies about marketing strategies and business development
- Created a public health program in Stanford’s Emergency Department, using iPads to educate patients about various health topics
Activities I am Passionate About:
- Mentoring and advising students
- Integrating ideas from other industries to improve healthcare delivery
- Health Education – enabling people with information to improve their health
- Business and Medicine: Health technology & entrepreneurship
- Design thinking
Major Awards Won: Fulbright Scholar, USA Today All-Academic First Team (top 20 students in America), Fulbright Scholar, Intel Science Talent Search Semi-Finalist, Coca-Cola Scholar, Merck Global Health Scholarship, Tylenol Scholarship, Stanford Medical Research Scholar, Stanford Children’s Health Innovations for Patient Care Grant, TED Med Ambassador, California Medical Association Scholarship, AP Scholar with Distinction, and National Merit Scholar
Rishi Mediratta, MD, MSc, MA
One phrase to Describe why I love Advising Students: Helping students attend their dream schools
Hometown: Kalamazoo, Michigan
Undergraduate: Johns Hopkins University, Phi Beta Kappa
Major: Public Health Studies
Master’s in Public Health: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine on a Marshall Scholarship
Masters in Medical Anthropology: School of Oriental & African Studies on a Marshall Scholarship
Medical School: Stanford School of Medicine
Residency: Stanford, Pediatrics
What I Did After College:
- Interned with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland
- Partnered with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health to study child health practices in communities
- Founded and launched an NGO to improve the health and education of Ethiopian orphans
- Co-authored a book about public health interventions aimed at decreasing child malnutrition
- World Bank consultant who helped implement Ethiopia’s national nutrition program
Activities I am Passionate About:
- Programs aimed at reducing neonatal and child mortality
- Global child health
Major Awards Won: Marshall Scholarship, Johns Hopkins University Woodrow Wilson Scholar, Johns Hopkins University Dean’s List, Tylenol Scholarship, Stanford Medical Research Scholar, and Intel Science Talent Search Semi-Finalist
Here are some schools our students were accepted to the last 2 years!
Our Story
The Cracking Med School Admissions authors met while they were Stanford medical school students in 2011. Pre-meds from their undergraduate institutions – Princeton, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia Universities – reached out to them for advice with their medical school applications. Soon, their friends referred their friends and siblings. The Cracking Med School Admissions authors would even hold mock interviews in their dorm rooms.
Seeing a great need for medical school application advising, Rachel, Rishi, James, and Devin decided to write a book: Cracking Med School Admissions, Advice from Students Who’ve Been There. They loved medical school admissions advising so much that they hosted workshops and book signings around California. Fast forward to the present day… The Cracking Med School Admissions team members are now residents and attendings. They are so passionate about medical school and scholarship advising that they continue to run Cracking Med School Admissions.
We are excited to work with you!
Schools Our Students Have Been Accepted to
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
University of Pennsylvania
Columbia
Mount Sinai
Cornell
Yale
Boston University
Brown
Dartmouth
Tufts
Rutgers
New York Medical College Georgetown
Thomas Jefferson
George Washington University
University of Iowa
University of Florida
University of Miami
University of South Florida
Stanford
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Southern California
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Riverside
Loma Linda
Oregon Health Sciences University
Duke
Eastern Virginia
Vanderbilt
Emory
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Texas – Southwestern
Baylor
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Michigan State
Northwestern
University of Chicago
Case Western
Rush
Medical College of Wisconsin
Wayne State
DO Programs:
Touro College in New York
Touro University California
Touro University Nevada
University of Toledo
Western University
Midwestern University / Arizona College
Midwestern University / Chicago College
Michigan State University
WE Promise
to have quick turnaround times and to be extremely proactive and supportive.
we believe
that every applicant has a UNIQUE story that includes: unique life circumstances, unique undergraduate background, unique skills, and unique experiences.
This is why we are EXCITED to get to know each applicant. Getting to know you is how we will make sure you STAND OUT to the admissions committee.
In the Community
The Cracking Med School Admissions team is passionate about giving back to our community.
We partner with post-bacc programs, University pre-med advising, pre-health frats / sororities, non-profits, and other healthcare organizations. Together, we host workshops and book signings about how to get into medical school.
Making Headlines
We are passionate about improving healthcare. We want to help you get into medical school and improve healthcare too.
Dr. Rachel Rizal is a regular writer for the U.S. News Medical School Admissions Doctor section. Her topics range from tips for medical school applicants to unique extra-curricular activities for premedical students.
We were interviewed by Stanford’s SCOPE outside Stanford Hospital one breezy spring day 2015. Dr. Rizal was broadening her knowledge of business through an administrative position in Stanford Health Care, and Dr. Mediratta was completing his pediatrics residency at Stanford…
Dr. Mediratta vividly remembers the first time he gave someone a flu shot. Thanks to the training he received as part of the school’s student-run influenza-prevention program, “My first patient didn’t even feel the needle.”
Dr. Mediratta’s work in Ethiopia began after a chance meeting with a Johns Hopkins alumnus in the Detroit airport. Spotting Mediratta’s Johns Hopkins sweatshirt, Dr. Richard Hodes, who trained in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins, struck up a conversation with Mediratta, a freshman at the time. They exchanged e-mail addresses and began corresponding — Mediratta was drawn to Hodes’s 20 years of work in Ethiopia, where he had been treating the poor and raising orphans…
Rachel’s global health story truly begins with her thesis. Funded by the Merck Adel Mahmoud Global Health scholarship, Rachel spent her senior summer studying vaccine delivery in the Philippines. She observed vaccinations at health clinics in poor rural and urban settings, and interviewed public health officials on local and national scales. The research helped her to understand some of the economic, political, governmental, public, and pharmaceutical perspectives on healthcare delivery and access to care…
Dr. Rizal is passionate about building healthcare organizations that improve access to care, care coordination, and health education. At Stanford Hospital, she founded a public health program in its Emergency Department. The program – now called “Stanford Health Advocates and Research in the Emergency Department” – screens patients for social needs and connects them with community resources. She bridges…